Jessica Moore: Heart of a Hunter
by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: Jess was never meant to die in that fire. Castiel, Angel of Thursday, says so. And he should know, the fire was on a Thursday. So he saves her, but there are repercussions. Now they're on the run from the demon who wants Jess dead, searching the country for three things: 1.) Jess's boyfriend Sam Winchester, 2.) The Righteous Man (aka Dean Winchester) 3.) a decent slice of pie.
1. Chapter 1

**Jessica Moore: Heart of a Hunter **

**Chapter 1: Crash and Burn **

_ "What would I do without you?" Sam Winchester asked sweetly, a small smile affixed to his face. Jess like to think of it as her smile. That little grin he saved for her and only her. _

_ She smirked playfully back at him, "Probably crash and burn," she teased, laughing when her boyfriend kissed her across the high-top table. This moment was perfect. This night was perfect. She didn't want it to end. She wanted to stop time right here and now and just breathe in the sweet feeling of the future, their future, sitting there waiting for them to meet it. _

_ But all good things come to an end. And everyone eventually has to crash and burn. _

Jess didn't remember much of the fire. Even years later she couldn't recall more than jagged, broken fragments of that last hour. A therapist would have told her it was shock and Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. A hunter would have told her it was a rat-bastard-son-of-a-bitch-yellow-eyed demon's mojo. An angel would have given her a very technical explanation of how that 'mojo' worked. But Jess didn't really care about all that. She was glad she didn't remember much of that final hour. Some things are better not remembered.

The bits she could recollect could be summed up in a handful of words.

Cold.

Fear.

Yellow eyes.

Smothering, hot, crushing agony.

Darkness.

Flames.

And burning.

Burning.

Burning.

Then darkness again.

That should have been the end of Jessica Moore. Sam Winchester believed it to be so. Dean Winchester believed his little brother. The authorities believed that the apartment was fried crispier than McDonald's French fry. No one could have survived. The chances of recovering remains were next to nothing. However, no one bothered to take into account angels. Because, really, _angels? Seriously? _

But none of that mattered. None of their beliefs and impressions and interpretations of what should have been a tragedy made any difference. Because the apartment burned on a Thursday. And Thursday's angel is particularly proactive. Ask anyone.

….

Jess awoke slowly, dimly aware of the fact that the sheets tangled around her sleeping body smelled slightly off, their texture rough against her skin where hers were smooth. Blindly, she reached for Sam, wanting his warmth and the comfort of his arms around her, part of her already aware of how much everything had changed, even as her brain hadn't really caught up to the learning curve. The deal was sealed when, instead of finding the warm body of her boyfriend within arms' reach, she found the edge of a twin-sized hotel bed and (frigid) empty air. That absence was largely what jolting her awake and sent her sitting bolt upright in bed, shivering as her body registered just how cold the room really was.

Then the guy in the trench coat wandered in and she started swearing.

"What the FUCKING HELL?!" she yelped, awkwardly jumping to her feet on the bed, trying to get her balance and grab a nearby weapon all at the same time. The bedside table lamps were screwed into the wall, so she settled for the alarm clock. It detached from the wall with a satisfying jerk and made quite the nice projectile as it sailed across the room to bounce of the forehead of the creepy trench-coat-wearing-rumpled-suit-dude standing in the bathroom doorway.

He did absolutely nothing in response, jus tilted his head slightly to the side and stared at her with the bluest eyes Jess had ever seen.

That just made her angrier, "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" she shouted, "WHY IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU KIDNAP ME?!"

This finally elicited a response from Trench Coat. "Please do not take my father's name in vain. I did not 'kidnap' you. You are not a baby goat and you are no longer napping. I see no 'kidnapping' here." His tone was completely flat and almost disinterested, but somehow Jess still got the message of _'I am long-suffering, please don't make my life harder.'_

Jess' eyes got wide, "Okay, so you're some sort of religious zealot…that set my apartment on fire for some reason… and then abducted me…?" She was scooting closer and closer to the phone, ready to call 911 any minute.

Trench Coat looked perplexed. His head stayed tilted to the side, messy black hair sticking up in every direction. Jess was reminded of a cat. Somehow, despite the intense little staring contest he seemed to have dragged her into, he really wasn't giving off the 'creeper' vibe. More of an 'innocent and confused' air, really. "No, I am not a zealot," he finally said after a long pause. Jess was nodding along, trying to encourage him to stay distracted and talking while she surreptitiously got ahold of the phone, when suddenly he dropped the biggest bombshell of her life. "I am an Angel of the Lord."

Okay, so her abductor was a nutjob. At least he didn't have yellow eyes. The vague memory of those things staring into her soul still made her skin crawl. And she took a theology class last semester, she was pretty sure of her footing as far as angels went. "Alright," she decided to test the little guy, "So which one are you?"

"Which one of what?" more perplexed-kitty-cat-look.

"Which angel. If you're an angel, which one are you? Gabriel, Michael, Raphael…?"

Trench Coat was shaking his head. "None of those. They are archangels. I am not an archangel."

"Are you sure?" she narrowed her eyes at him, "It seems like if you're going to pretend to be an angel, you might as well go for the biggest and the best." _'Smooth move, Jess,'_ she mentally chastised herself, _'antagonizing the criminal, great thought there.'_

"I am an Angel of the Lord," he intoned, as if extra growly severity in his tone of voice would better convince her.

"Yeah, so which one?"

He stared at her even harder, blue eyes burning holes through her soul. Jess held her ground, staring back with equal venom. Finally he seemed cave. "I am Castiel, the Angel of Thursday."

Jess raised an eyebrow, "You made that up," she challenged.

He just looked _wounded _now. Like she had drop-kicked his puppy in front of a semi-truck and insulted his grandma while doing it. "All souls who ascend to heaven on Thursdays are under my protection."

"So why are you here, if you're such a hotshot in heaven?" Why was still talking to this guy? Maybe it was his eyes. They just begged to be trusted and understood. Like a small animal left in the rain. She needed to stop comparing Creeper-Trench-Coat-Dude to pets. It was weird.

"You," he said bluntly, "You were not meant to die on a Thursday. Reality was being perverted. I repaired it. However, it would appear that the demons who were pursuing your soul for reasons unknown are not content to let the matter lie. For now I am your protection against those who wish to kill you and drag you into the deepest pits of Hell."

Wow, he even said 'Hell' instead of 'hell'. He must really take this seriously. Time for one last attempt at talking him out of this crazy angel notion. "So, you're telling me that angels are just tax accountants in trench coats, because I'm a bit disappointed."

"You humans cannot behold my true form."

"Or what happens?"

"Your eyes melt in their sockets."

Wow, well then. Time to go for the gold. She had a grip on the hotel phone, she could call 911 any second, she had to keep Trench Coat distracted. "Alright then, how about some wings? Can you show me those?"

"Very well."

Light bulbs shattered and sparked, the whole room hummed with power, the hair on Jess' arms stood on end. And in the darkness she saw silver wings take shape around the smallish man in the trench coat. A small corona of light danced and shone around him, illuminating his blue eyes and making them glow from within. As soon as a feathered wing, cramped in the small space, brushed against her cheek, Jess knew.

This guy, this Castiel, was an Angel of the Lord. And her life was seriously screwed up.

** Author's Note: It has always been my head-cannon that Cas and Jess would have been buddies if they had known each other. I see them having a strong sibling-ish relationship, and that's how it's going to be in this fic. I think Jess is one of the most underrated characters in the show and I love her relationship with Sam. This fic was created from me thinking about how Jess would have integrated into the Supernatural world. For a few chapters it will follow the canon plotline, but will quickly diverge from canon into a wonderful land of AU where anything can happen. Of course, all canon stuff will be from Jess and Cas' POV as Jess searches the country for Sam. **

** PLEASE REVIEW! I LOVE REVIEWS! See ya next chapter!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: I'm not dead…right? **

A few hours and a nice shower later, Jess was feeling a bit more clear-headed and a somewhat calmer. She sat on the end of her hotel room bed, staring down the trench-coated-angel in front of her, trying to digest what he had just told her. "A _demon _tried to kill me."

"Yes. According to human authorities he did kill you."

"A _demon?_"

"Yes."

"And this is normal? There are demons running around offing people as we speak?"

"More or less." Castiel seemed rather uncomfortable with this line of questioning. He stood in front of her, shifting from foot to foot like a nervous kindergartener at his first show-and-tell.

Jess raked her hair back from her face and gave the angel an even look, "And the only reason you, _an angel of the lord,_ bothered to stop my murder is because I wasn't meant to die on a Thursday?"

Castiel stared her in the eye and said bluntly, "Yes."

Jess stared at him, not sure which bothered her more, the implications of the response itself, or the disinterested, bored monotone in which he spoke them. "Does _anyone?" _

Castiel looked perplexed, he tipped his head to the side and furrowed his brow at her, "Does anyone do what?"

"Does anyone protect people from the demons? Does anyone bother to try to _save people_, because it's not looking like angels are bothering anymore."

Castiel held his curious-pose, head still tipped to the side, brow still deeply furrowed. "I saved you. Were you not satisfied with the outcome?"

Jess huffed out a sigh, "Believe me, I'm happy not to be dead, but Castiel, it's not about me."

"I do not understand. All of my interactions with humans up until this point have indicated that you are essentially self-serving creatures who do not care much about each other's fates." Castiel's expression momentarily shifted from baffled to deeply sad. For two seconds he didn't look like an awkward trench-coat creeper. Instead he looked young, terribly, horribly young, and very alone. Jess irrationally wanted to hug the poor guy in that moment, tell him it was all going to be fine, even though she was pretty sure that any problems an angel had she wouldn't be able to fix. She was glad when the moment passed and Castiel returned to being socially awkward. She wasn't comfortable seeing something as powerful and proud as an angel reduced to that level of vulnerability.

"Sorry, Castiel, but that's not true. I mean, someone has to be out there, right? Taking care of other people? We can't just be…food or entertainment or whatever the hell we are to demons, right? There's got to be some people who hunt back?"

"You are handling this curiously well," Castiel informed her, "Based upon my observations of humanity, you should be experiencing some sort of psychotic break after your experiences."

Jess chewed a fingernail, trying to figure out a way to explain all the emotions bubbling and boiling just beneath the surface of her thoughts. "Well, I'm freaked out and part of me wants to run to the nearest mental hospital and check myself in, and part of my wants to sit in a corner and cry like a baby and a big part of me wants to punch you, run off and then cry like a baby for hours and hours. And a huge part of me just wants to go back to how it was. I want to wake up and roll over and see that my boyfriend's back from his hunting trip. I want to snuggle up to the person I love and be _safe _and _warm _and _home_, but that's not going to happen for me," her voice was rising in volume and pitch as she spoke and thick, gummy tears were choking up her tear ducts, but Jess didn't care, this shit needed to be said right off the bat or she was going to go crazy keeping it all inside, "It's probably not going to happen for me ever again, and that's _not fine. _A tough person would have said it's fine and moved on, but I never claimed to be tough, even though I'd like to be. It's _not fine _that I'll probably never see Sam again and that my family thinks I'm dead and I'm probably going to have to let them think that to keep them safe from a freaking _demon_. I'm scared and lonely and stuck in a hotel room with the world's most awkward angel and I don't know what to do. But, I do know one thing, and that's that what I'm feeling right now is horrible and I hate it and I never want another human being to feel like this. There's just this level you get to where all the crap going on around you either makes you stop and freeze and never move forward again or pushes you over the edge and you can suddenly think clearly and act decisively and it might not be perfect, but it _works _so you go with it. I'm there right now. So my psychotic break's going to have to wait. Sorry buddy."

Castiel blinked. "You are a truly good human, Jessica Moore. Your soul is very interesting."

Jess felt a blush crawl up her cheeks at the angel's praise. "Uh, thanks I guess?"

Castiel cocked his head and regarded her with distant, unknowable blue eyes. Jess wondered if he was looking at her soul. The thought made her feel suddenly naked. She curled in on herself, tucking her knees under her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs. Oddly enough, her pajamas didn't seem to be any worse for wear after her near-death experience. "What are you going to do with me?" she asked; voice suddenly quiet under the unwavering electric blue stare of the supernatural being in front of her.

Castiel blinked again, head popping up from its cocked position as if he were just now realizing that foresight could be beneficial when dealing with puny humans. "I…had not thought of that," he admitted, gravelly voice stiff and uncomfortable.

Jess couldn't help it. She face-palmed. "Seriously? You didn't 'think of that'?" Jess realized that she was dangerously close to hysterical laughter. If Castiel made one more dry comment she would lose it.

"The human time frame is aggravatingly linear. I am unused to having to take it into account," he replied primly.

A snort of laughter escaped from Jess' lips and she was gone. Body shaking with wave after wave of pure, unadulterated hilarity, Jess flopped over onto her side on the bed and just laughed. Tears squeezed their way out of the corners of her eyes and she honestly wasn't sure if they were from humor or sadness or some weird alchemy of the two. She didn't care. She laughed until she was breathless and gasping, lying on her side on the scratchy motel sheets, attempting to regain some degree of composure. When she finally fell silent, Castiel spoke again.

"Are you done?"

"Yes," Jess wheezed, sniffling and giggling a little, "I'm done."

"I hope the Righteous Man is not so given towards befuddling emotional displays as you appear to be," the angel muttered.

Jess probably wasn't supposed to hear that little comment. She did anyway. Jess probably wasn't supposed to respond to that which she was not supposed to hear. She did anyway. "Righteous Man?" she asked.

Castiel stiffened and shuffled his feet a bit awkwardly. "Yes," he answered tersely, "I am on a heavenly mission to find the Righteous Man and protect him."

"Ookayyy," Jess stretched out the word incredulously, peering up at the angel from where she had flopped on the bed, "And why are you looking for a righteous man?"

"Not a righteous man. There are many of those. THE Righteous Man. There is only one. But there are thousands of men with the potential to become the Righteous Man. I must find them and prevent them from doing so."

"Okay, I'm going to need some more info than that, buddy. _Why _are we doing this?"

"_We _are doing nothing. I am carrying out a heavenly mission."

"Mmhmm," Jess decided to humor him, "Continue…?"

Castile huffed indignantly. He probably considered it to be beneath him to be interrogated by a human woman in a sketchy motel room after saving her from a not-so-natural house fire. "To prevent the Apocalypse," he finally intoned, managing to keep his voice the same even timbre as normal, but with a hurried, guilty attitude to it more commonly found in the voices of guilty children caught in the midst of illicit plotting.

"Okay. Sounds like fun." Jess gave him a shaky grin. No, she wasn't okay, but dammit she could act like she was. "Where's our first stop?"

"I cannot take you with me!" Castiel protested. The electric lights flickered and popped warningly as his emotions rose and fluttered within him.

Jess popped up, now sitting ram-rod straight on the hard motel bed. "You need me, angel-boy, whether you like it or not, and I need you." She cut him off before he could do more than flap his mouth a bit awkwardly. "You're going for the 'normal human' look, right? Well, hate to say it, but you stick out like a sore thumb. You need someone to give you a crash-course on the human thing. I need somewhere to go. I can't go home and I can't go back to my apartment. My old life's over." She could feel tears burning against her eyes, begging for release. She denied them, crushing the urge to hide under blankets and cry like a little girl. "Let me help you." She meant for her closing statement to come off strong and confident. Instead it was a small, soft request. She stared up at the angel in front of her, silently begging him for this. For purpose, for something beyond wallowing in what she had lost, worrying that the demon had found her family, her friends, her… Sam. No, she couldn't go back, but maybe, just maybe, this angel could give her a way forward.

He huffed again, but this time's exhalation was not nearly as harsh as the last one. "Very well, Jessica Moore. I will take you with me. We can have a… road… trip, that is what it is called, correct? And you can teach me to be more…human-like."

Jess grinned up at Castiel, her eyes still watery but beginning to dry a bit. "Thank you, Castiel."

He hunched his shoulders oddly; she guessed that he might be shrugging his wings, if they had been in the visual plane. "You are welcome, Jessica."

Jess cleared her throat, "Okay, first stop, clothes. I can't run around in pajamas all the time, and you can't be wearing a formal suit everywhere you go."

Castiel looked perplexed and a bit miffed, "I can keep this coat, correct?" He gestured to the tan garment, his eyes big and pleading.

Jess sighed indulgently, "Fine, the creeper trench coat stays."

Castiel smiled smugly. Jess got the feeling the next few hours would be interesting to say the least.

**Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is a bit emotional and dramatic/sad; I promise it will get happier but this had to be done to get to the more cheerful stuff. So Cas and Jess are on a road trip to find the Righteous Man (aka Dean Winchester, not that they know that yet). Jess will, of course run into Sam again (but right now she and Cas don't realize the connection between Sam and Dean and Cas' mission). But never fear! The Sam x Jess meeting WILL happen in the future. **

**PLEASE REVIEW! I loved the reviews I received for the last chapter! PLEASE KEEP REVIEWING! THANKS! And happy New Year!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Author's Note: I'm not completely happy with this chapter, but the transition needed to happen and this idea was pretty funny. **

"No."

"Castiel…"

"No."

"_Castiel_."

"No."

"Castiel! Are all angels this _picky?!_" Jess sighed in mildly amused frustration as she tossed yet another rejected shirt back onto the clothing rack.

"I wish to have proper attire. I am a warrior of God, after all," his tone was dry, but his attention was clearly not on the matter at hand. Instead his head was busy swiveling about, sharp blue eyes taking everything in with an intense, searing curiosity.

Jess sighed again and rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling as if beseeching the florescent-lighted heavens. They were currently standing in the middle of the nearest Salvation Army, one of the few places where no one looked askance at their pajama-and-trenchcoat clad states or at the fact that all of their money came from Castiel's apparently magic money-producing angelic trenchcoat pocket. "Why couldn't you just be like every other man on the planet and just let me pick for you?" she teased gently, not quite sure how far she could go with poking at the angel.

"I am not a man. Angels are genderless beings of light and sound energy." Castiel looked a little perplexed by the fact that she had even attempted to assign such a foreign thing as _gender _to his greatness.

"Well, right now you look like a man, and if you expect to blend in with us humans, you should get used to acting like one," she advised, gathering up a selection of shirts in sizes that looked approximately the same as Castiel's narrow frame, "Now, go try these on."

Castiel blinked at the bundle of cloth in her arms, delicately removed the top option and began to attempt to fit it on over his trenchcoat.

"No, no, no," Jess was giggling a bit, despite her valiant attempts at smothering the amused noises. She carefully tugged the shirt away from Castiel's fumbling fingers. "Okay, that is _not _how you do it."

Castiel gave her a wounded look, "However, you instructed me to…"

"I had assumed you knew a _bit _more about human behavior and fashion than you apparently do." Jess carefully re-folded the shirt.

"Why should the way the humans choose to garment and ornament themselves matter to me?"

"Oh, sweetie, you are a man," Jess laughed a bit, voice tightening as she recalled other trips to other, higher-end retail stores with Sam.

_"Jess, where are we going? I just need some new shirts." Sam was laughing in that sweet, slightly awkward way of his. It was early in their relationship. They were still 'just friends', if a 'just friend' went out of her way to take their male 'friend' to buy new clothes when she noticed that all his shirts had holes in them. _

_ "We're going to buy shirts," she laughed back, elbowing him, "I thought it was obvious." _

_ "But I have this coupon for the army-surplus store…" _

_ "Sam."_

_ "Yeah?" _

_ "Do you really want to look like a lumber-jack-commando for the rest of your life?" _

_ "But I'm not..." _

_ She gave him a frank look. _

_ "I am, aren't I?" _

_ She nodded, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "It might be the rippling muscles that scream 'commando', but I think it's probably all the plaid you cover the rippling muscles with that really seals the 'lumberjack deal'. It's a tragic loss to society," she said mock-seriously. _

_ "What?" he was still chuckling. _

_ "The visibility of your muscles! A body like that should be displayed!" she teased, grabbing his hands and dancing with him a bit before settling back into a walk, "Your insistence on disguising it in various shades of plaid and plaid-er is very suspicious." _

_ "Suspicious?" Yep, he was still laughing. _

_ "Of course! It speaks of a secret past!" she joked, "Perhaps you were a great sculptor's model but you ran away and now you bury your magnificent physique in layers of pseudo-military-plaid-based obscurity!" She laughed at her own ridiculous story, a warm rush of pleasure building in her chest as he threw back his head and laughed with her. _

_ "If you think the plaid's bad with me, you should see my father and older brother, they're the original lumberjack-commandoes." His eyes got a bit distant as he finished the sentence, voice fading off and trailing away like fading tendril of long-lost smoke. _

_ Jess furrowed her brow as she peered at his newly-pensive face. She gently bumped her shoulder against his, "Maybe someday I'll meet them." _

_ "Maybe," he smiled at her, bright and golden and oh-so-beautiful. _

_ "Now, come on Lieutenant Lumberjack, we have some shirts to buy." _

_ "Coming, Jess."_

In the present time, standing in a Thrift Shop, arms full of clothes for an angel, friendless and alone, Jess refused to let herself cry. Castiel wouldn't understand it and random bursts of vocal emotion were frowned upon in most public places. There was a moment of silence as Castiel eyed the pile of new clothes suspiciously. "Very well, I will attempt to don this clothing."

"Thanks Castiel," was all Jess could think to say as she scrubbed at her not-watery-at-_all _eyes.

"I do not believe gratitude in necessary or appropriate in this context."

"Okay, Castiel."

There was a moment of silence as Jess re-hung the reject items on hangers and Castiel shuffled off under his burden of clothing options. Suddenly, the angel paused, "Jessica?"

"Yeah, Castiel?"

"How do I know if something 'fits'?"

A laugh surprised Jess as it bubbled out, squirming free of her tear-and-stress tightened throat. "Maybe you should just keep your tax-accountant getup."

"Perhaps. Human fashion is perplexing." Castiel paced off, "I will endeavor to decipher the complexities human wardrobe on my own."

"Show me how each shirt looks after you put it on," Jess suggested, "I can tell you how it looks."

"Hmm," Castiel hummed non-committally, before slamming the dressing room door closed behind him.

It might have just been Jess' ears playing tricks on her, but she was sure that she heard the angel muttering in a strange blend of English and some other, more exotic language about flimsy doors and how they really should have been made with angelic strength in mind. Shaking her head, Jess continued packing away Castiel's rejected clothing options. It was looking like this shopping trip was going to take more time than she thought.

When Castiel came out of the dressing room wearing a hot pink leopard print shirt she was definitely did _not _put in his clothing pile she knew today was going to be a long day.

"This pattern is very peculiar," was Castiel's only comment on the fashion disaster he had draped himself in.

Jess face-palmed, "Let's see what we can do about finding you some more appropriate clothes.

"Indeed, I find this color to be very distracting." Castiel's brows were furrowed as he eyed the cloth hanging off of his narrow frame.

"_Distracting, _that's one word for it…" Jess said diplomatically.

"Yes, I just said that," Castiel reminded her, brows furrowing further as he eyed her, head tipped slightly to the side.

"Go try on something less eye-searing, okay?"

Castiel nodded slowly before disappearing back into the dressing room.

Jess wondered what he'd pop out wearing this time. She hoped it wasn't anything feline or neon themed. She had had enough of both to last a lifetime.

**Author's Note: Hi guys! Long time no see! Sorry about that, real life happened and I wasn't able to update for a while… But, I'm back and so are Jess and Cas! I know, not much happens in this chapter, but I promise Jess and Cas will be on the road soon, 'saving people and hunting things' as the Winchester motto goes. And we got to see just why Castiel is not allowed to buy his own clothes… **

**So, I hope you enjoyed that little bit of transition/comic relief (plus the sappy Sam x Jess flashback, yes, I like flashbacks and am not afraid to use them!)! If you read, please, please, PLEASE REVIEW! Hearing from you all is wonderful and lovely, and makes my day ten million times better!**

**See ya next chapter!**


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